A new formula proposed by the governor to radically change the way school districts are funded is creating a buzz statewide, as officials look at projections released Wednesday that show some would get big revenue boosts, while others would receive far less per student.

The rationale for the funding overhaul is that disadvantaged students cost more to educate. So, districts that have a higher percentage of English learners and students who quality for free and reduced priced meals should get more money than those that don’t, the governor argues.

He would also do away with dozens of “categorical” funding streams that were created to funnel money into specific programs. Instead, the governor wants to give local control to school boards to decide how best to spend their dollars.

While most school officials praise the local control part of the proposal, some that would get less money under the plan are critical of the funding formula, which would provide supplemental grants equal to 35 percent of the base per student revenue for each English learner, economically disadvantaged student or foster youth.

Contra Costa County districts would see a wide variety of funding increases, ranging from a low of 12 percent growth in the tiny Canyon district to a high of nearly 71 percent in the Pittsburg district.

Although the state says Canyon has no English learners or low-income students, Superintendent Gloria Faircloth said that’s a mistake and she estimates about 12 percent of students qualify for free and reduced lunches. In Pittsburg, 80 percent of students are low-income and 32 percent don’t speak English fluently.

Officials in these and other districts said they are waiting to see what the final outcome will be.

“It should change a little bit, but it still doesn’t look good for us,” said Faircloth, whose district educates about 66 K-8 students. “We’re so small, but with our operating costs, there’s a lot of things we have to do, so we’re not crazy about the new funding method. I understand why the governor wants to do this. It seems equitable for other districts, but we were all low, so it would be nice if we could go up (more).”

Canyon’s funding would rise by $857 per student, from $6,945 in 2011-12 to $7,802 when the plan is fully implemented. Pittsburg’s per student funding, on the other hand, would grow by $4,813 per student, rising from $6,799 in 2011-12 to $11,612 with full implementation.

Enrique Palacios, Pittsburg’s Deputy Superintendent of Business Services, said more money will mean more accountability.

“The challenge is, OK, we’re getting all this money,” he said, “but now the expectation is we have to bring the performance of students up and the decisions are going to be left to the local level.”

For districts that believe they will need more money, Palacios said the governor is also proposing to lower the threshold for passing a parcel tax from two-thirds voter approval to 55 percent.

The San Ramon Valley Unified District, which currently receives about $6.6 million a year through a parcel tax, would get a funding increase of about 39 percent under the local funding formula, based on a relatively low number of needy students, including 4.5 percent English learners and 2.5 percent who qualify for free and reduced price meals.

“The concept of local control is something that I think all school districts have wanted back for a long, long time,” said district spokesman Terry Koehne. “But, the devil’s in the details. That comes with a certain level of disparity. It’s going to mean that our district will most likely not receive as much money as other districts, so it’s a double-edged sword.”

Orinda Union Elementary would see a bump of about $2,027 per student when the formula is fully implemented, going from about $5,753 in 2011-12 to $7,780 per student, or a 35 percent increase.

“We’re very disappointed in the formula,” said Orinda Superintendent Joe Jaconette, “There shouldn’t really be winners and losers.”

Moraga Superintendent Bruce Burns agreed, saying the state should strive to raise all districts to the national average.

“There’s going to be some push-back from communities like Lamorinda,” he said. “They pay higher property taxes and income taxes and would expect a return on their tax dollar investment.”

118 Responses to “Governor’s proposed Local Control Funding Formula would create winners and losers, some say”

Yes, Newling said this is one of the activities that gets kids excited about school. She said she had tons of applicants for the dance and art teacher positions because there are so few opportunities statewide to provide this kind of instruction. Adding literacy to the lessons helps make learning fun, especially for ELL students, she said.
When I visited, kindergartners were dancing and jumping around with huge smiles on their faces as they played “freeze” dance, stopping at verbal cues. Then, they sat down on the carpet to begin the literacy portion of the lesson. This is in addition, to PE, Newling said.
So, it also fits in with the school’s fitness emphasis.
Perhaps the extended day provides more opportunities for these types of classes. Newling said students will get bored and turned off to school if they are constantly drilled in English and math.
But, she was also very excited about a new computer math program and Benchmark literacy program, with reading materials that include both fiction and nonfiction stories focusing on two dogs named Belle and Rosie.
She said teachers are already embracing Common Core Curriculum strategies, such as asking students to explain the rationale behind their comments, even at the kindergarten level.
“I’m jazzed about this!” she said.

At the high school level, I think things like dance, music, sports probably do contribute to school attendance and better grades. That means offering and giving attention to more than the cheerleader clique club or intramural competition.

It would mean offering basic, fun, optional opportunities for basic kids. Outside of restricted academies at certain schools, there certainly isn’t enough of that being spread around.

In elementary school? Not so sure if it does much more than give them exercise.

It would be interesting to know if all the kids get dance class–or just certain grades, and do they have to earn dance class with through scholastic achievement.

A kindergarten teacher could not play “freeze” with students to teach a lesson without receiving additional funds? Not sure, but some of this seems so basic it is raising more questions than answers. What is actually going on in our schools?

Activity, aka sports/music/art, do put excitement in school and kids then want to go and learn. Most likely every student can fall into one of the categories and get more enjoyment out of learning. Bring back sports/music/art to the classrooms, reduce Dent spending/costs.

Here’s a disturbing article about the “absence culture” that exists in U.S. schools. It appears that leave abuse plagues schools, since “everybody does it.”

(Sidebar: To manage leave abuse, I favor a single, all-purpose leave bank of compensable leave time, combined with an annual leave buy-back program, which incentivizes employees to conserve leave. Some companies have no leave banks at all, to avoid the leave entitlement attitude, which works by granting paid leave on a case-by-case basis — though this would be challenging to administer in a public agency setting typically characterized by a low-accountability culture.)

Excerpts:

– The Education Department reports that 5.3 percent of U.S. teachers are absent on any given day, but what counts as an absence varies from school to school and district to district.

– In Camden, New Jersey, the school board said that it needed to find substitutes for 40 percent of its teachers each day, and a subsequent report by Brown University’s Urban Education and Policy program verified that teachers took an average of 21 days off per school year.

– Nationally, 36 percent of teachers are absent more than 10 days per year.

– Two studies concluded that teachers in bigger schools were absent more often than in smaller schools, elementary school teachers were absent more often than high school teachers, tenured teachers took off 3.7 more days than those without tenure, female teachers under age 35 averaged 3.2 more absences than did men and teachers who have a master’s degree took off less time than those who didn’t.

– Teachers claim that they are absent so often because they are exposed to an increased amount of germs, but researchers point out that teachers are frequently absent because of generous leave provisions in their contracts.

– According to the National Council and Teacher Quality, 113 large school districts’ collective bargaining agreements provide an average of 13.5 sick days and personal leave per school year.

– A Harvard University study indicates that most days taken off are “personal illness” days but only last one or two days because most districts require a doctor’s note on the third day of illness.

– Substitutes are not required to have a teaching certification, teaching education classes, and in some districts, nothing more than a high school GED.

– Substitutes who are qualified are often required to administer busy work or babysit the class instead of utilizing their skills.

Missing the Second Interim Report attached to the agenda, to explain the proposed reduction of 27 elementary teachers, 9 middle & high school English teachers for a start. March 15 will be Pink Friday . . .

Missing on the agenda is reference to Brian Lawrence’s request for a ‘five year accounting’ of legal expenses. I suppose that could require more time to compile due to Rolen’s ‘illness’.

Under the Professional Services Agreement for General Legal Services, Item 11 states that: “District legal counsel shall maintain detailed time and expense records which detail the date, time and nature of the services rendered to the district….”

As a matter of general procedure, the board should be given this information on at least an annual basis as part of General Counsel’s Performance Review, with a “summary” then presented in open session.

Unless Rolen needs extra time to be ‘creative’ with his records, presenting these records to the board should not be much of a time consuming process, as redaction of private information is not necessary for board review.

Fascinating request in Item 15.13 — asking the Board to waive its 2 meeting posting required by AR 9311 for adoption of new Board policies on Uniform Complaint that were required to be in place by March 1. The reason given was that CSBA didn’t release its recommended change until Feb 12. Staff says the proposed changes were posted on the district website since Feb 14 [lightning speed] — I wonder where on the website because they didn’t show up in the “District News” until Feb 22 and are posted in the “newsroom”. Wonder if Theresa saw them before Feb 22 since she regularly checks the newsroom ? So if they were posted on the website Feb 14, why didn’t they make it on the Feb 25 Board agenda ? One little omission in the staff report — they are only asking for waiver of the AR 9311 — they also need waiver of Board By-law 9311. Wonder of that is a Brown Act problem ?

Dr. J: Since all Uniform Complaints don’t require closed session consideration, it would seem a closed session agenda item should give reference to the legal standard which allows them to review it in Closed Session, ie. Ed Code #, CR Title 5 #, US Code Title 20 #.

Prior to closed session, I’m looking forward to what they have to say about Rolen’s two-month PRA delay game with Daniel Borenstein, and hope the discussion reaches far beyond just his request.

Dr. J @ 62: Nice observation, especially since the posted “Red Lined” copy of the changes indicate (bottom of page) that they were “Revised February 25, 2013” which would make it difficult to have posted them by Feb 14. 😉

@G#64 Wow, I didn’t catch that early item — another wonder why its so early ? Its only listed as “info” so I don’t think the Board can vote on it. I guess we might hear about the District’s December check and invoice of Greg McCoy, the attorney representing the Big5.

@G#67 I suspect Steven Lawrence and Greg Rolen wanted it early before the “broadcast” so the viewing audience won’t know exactly what they say.

@G#65 On Feb 21 I posted that the Board agenda did not have anything in it about adopting the policy required to be in place on March 1 — the next day I posted that the AR suddenly appeared on the website [under District News]. Theresa pointed out the adoption date as Feb 25 but it wasn’t listed on the agenda. My guess is that whenever it was prepared, it was supposed to be on the Agenda for Feb 25 but someone dropped the ball and it didn’t get on the Agenda. Yet Steven Lawrence could have set a special meeting before March 1 but didn’t.

I don’t really care when they finalized the policy revision or even whether it was posted within some legal time frame—but I care greatly that they feel it is OK to lie about the date on an agenda that becomes public record.

Who would that be? Mildred Browne? I don’t remember the creation of a position called Asst Supt Spec Assignment…. Is that how they covered paying for two people to do what had been one job–Kerri Mills AND Mildred Browne?

Also noted the SIG schools in Bay Point are losing funding for instruction and a ton of the ‘extra hours’ that may have been their saving grace last year. Too bad we’ll have to wait till 2014 and a whole new class of kids to find out what the effect was.

Good article, but I would have liked to see the actual 1/31 Rolen-to-Borenstein ‘snail mail’ letter too.

Carefully read CA ED CODE 35031.

What does the law say about writing contracts or extensions that go beyond the legal limit of 4 years? As I read it, original 4 yr term contracts should end (period) at the 4 yr mark, and entirely new contracts should be written for a new term of 1-4 years.

And—look at those ‘secret’ contract extensions that were originally signed by Mayo, Eberhart and Whitmarsh. Look at the Term dates and where they were altered to go to June 30, 2014.

Sloppy work even for that board. Not sloppy enough?

Now look at what is being presented Monday. See…the Term dates have been changed BACK to ONLY go through June 30, 2013, because FFF at least knew not to put out a contract longer than 4 years–(see my above post #74).

BUT THE ORIGINAL DAMN SIGNATURES were left in place–on contracts altered (again) after two of those board members had been gone for months!

How much did we pay the dip/s from FFF to rewrite or alter these pieces of doo. What is legal about altering the signed contracts and leaving the old board’s signatures there? They certainly did NOT sign what is being presented Monday.

@G#75 EDD charges a 10% penalty plus daily interest. That would make it well over $5000 in penalties and interest. From EDD “A 10% penalty and interest will be charged on late Next-Day, Semiweekly, Monthly, and Quarterly deposit payment(s).
Penalty and interest will be charged on the UI and ETT Contributions, and the SDI and PIT Withholdings. For
calculating interest, the daily interest factor for January 1, 2013, through June 30, 2013, is .000082*.”

Dr J: Makes you want to go back and find out how often Payroll has cost us penalties like this.

Obviously I’m more upset about the Big 5 contracts. First, they say Lack’s and Minyen’s Cure and Correct letters lacked merit, but then go right ahead and throw out those ‘secret’ contracts that were the very basis of the Cure and Correct. Now, they give us the original 2009-10 contracts that were invalid when they were ‘extended’ without corrections on 4/23.

But we’re supposed to accept that invalid vote and just let addenda fix everything so this board can simply, in effect, ratify the 4/23 invalid vote.

Will this board be just as chicken-s and afraid to stand up for what’s right for the students when they have to negotiate with the unions?

@G#76 Well at least Exhibit A surfaced. My understanding is that the contracts attached to the April 23, 2012 agenda are attached [I didn’t verify them] and then the newly drafted extensions, which also include other provisions not specifically discussed back in April 2012. There is no discussion about the automatic increases, which may violate AB 1344 “prohibit an employment contract for a local agency executive, as defined, from providing an automatic renewal of a contract that provides for an automatic compensation increase in excess of a
cost-of-living adjustment”

Small progress – each of the big5 contracts at least are now presented as a stand-alone agenda item, not lumped together as one.

Step backwards – requests for 2 more legal firm additions have no information to explain why we need 2 more firms bringing the total contracted up to 9 firms – what is their expertise? Are there so many lawsuits against us “we” can’t keep up? WHY are more law firms needed?

A new study shows that non-teachers outnumber teachers in 25 states, including California (which has 103.3 co-called “educrats” for every teacher). This staffing bloat is a change from the past; sixty years ago there were 237 public school teachers for every 100 non-teaching staff.

“As the share of non-instructional staffing has grown at US public schools, per-pupil expenditures in constant dollars have also grown significantly, from $1,708 in 1949-50 to $11,339 in 2008-09 (most recent year available. That’s a 564% and more than six-fold increase in real spending per pupil! It’s been well-documented that educational outcomes (e.g. test scores) have been flat for many decades, so we’re not getting any observable increase in quality for the six-fold increase in real spending per pupil.”

@Wendy, did you see the $5000 plus penalty and interest for not filing the payroll taxes on time ? Bryan Richards has cost this district well over $100,000 with his carelessness in leaving his laptop out on a Friday, and now not filing the Calif payroll taxes on time by Jan 31. There needs to be some accountability.

Trustees must hold the Superintendent accountable or show him the door.

I remain hopeful that the Trustees will do the latter, in order for the District to have the leadership it DESERVES.

MDUSD needs to hire a new Superintendent that, in turn, will recruit a leadership team with integrity and that is innovative, competent and capable of doing the job that needs doing — including building trusting relationships with all stakeholders.

The steady stream of financial irregularities coming from Richards’ office — including ongoing payroll complaints — are unmistakeable red flags and wholly intolerable. (I expect we’ll learn the full extent of the problem only after an ethical leadership team is in place.)

@84 — Rolen’s misuse of “attorney-client” privilege has cropped up again and again. Here he treats it as if the confidentiality belongs to the administrators, when, in fact, he was (supposed to be) representing the district and the board, which never asserted its attorney-client privilege. Either he doesn’t understand the concept — incredible for an attorney with his experience — or he is intentionally mis-stating his motivation to hide impermissible practices.

MDUSD has been the laughing stock of N. CA school districts for far too long. Will we ever have a district that doesn’t generate eye-rolling at the mere mention of its name?

Now that the board has had a retreat focusing on the Brown Act and Public Records Act, trustees should understand that Rolen cannot speak for them and he cannot withhold documents, if trustees believe it’s in the public’s best interests to release them.
At a previous board meeting, Superintendent Lawrence said he didn’t direct his secretary to alter his contract or Bryan Richards’ contract. He only directed her to change the expiration dates, which is what the board voted on.
Lawrence’s secretary would not have deleted a clause in the superintendent’s contract and renumbered all the remaining clauses without direction from someone. She told me she was waiting for Rolen to review the contracts before she typed up the final versions. It’s likely that there were emails exchanged between the superintendent’s secretary and Rolen regarding the new contracts. Trustees should release those emails so the public can see who directed her to make the changes.
And trustees should ask Rolen point blank during the public board meeting if he directed the superintendent’s secretary to alter Lawrence’s contract.
And speaking of stonewalling, I submitted PRAs to MDUSD, FCMAT and the COE for all correspondence related to the CVCHS study. FCMAT and the COE responded immediately, letting me know that they received my request and were working on it. They have both already complied, giving me the documents electronically at no cost.
Although my PRA to MDUSD was addressed to the superintendent, Rolen, Deb Cooksey and Bryan Richards, I have not heard back from any of them. It appears that district staff wasn’t taking to heart what the FFF attorney told them about the need to be responsive.
Like Borenstein, I may also be compelled to forward my PRA directly to trustees in order to get a timely response.
It is Rolen’s common practice to use snail mail to respond to PRAs, even though my requests always specifically ask for emailed responses. The board could direct him to respond electronically, in the interest of expediency and to quell suspicions that he uses snail mail as a delaying tactic.

TH @88 – when you were engaged in emailing with the secretary, did you ask the her who (other than Lawrence telling the to change the expiration dates) directed her to make the updates on the contracts? I find it amazing that his secretary would take direction from anyone else without his knowledge. If he didn’t review her work, and ask her why she made those changes if he didnt tell her to, he’s at fault.

It seems Lawrence always points a finger at someone else then walks away, without offering to find out why something he should have been aware of / was under his direct control of position had not been done correctly, or was not done at all when “it” should have been. If he’s so inept at managing staff, has no control or knowledge of actions his staff makes, why are we paying him so much and extending his contract?

You are correct that Lawrence should have noticed that his contract was a changed and asked who directed the change, since it was not board-approved. He also shouldn’t have asked trustees to sign it. And, of course, the trustees who signed it also should have noticed that it was altered and refused to sign it, since the change was not board-approved. Apparently, no one bothered to read it, or they hoped no one would find out.

To Wendy re #86. MDUSD DID have a superintendent and staff with integrity under McHenry. The people who write on this blog, the same people who fought so hard to get rid of Gary and his staff will find fault with the next group. If the didn’t, how would they fill their time?

Brian Lawrence said he would like to see 5 years of Rolen’s legal expense/budget logs. I’d like to see them back to when he started in 2005!

If Rolen is ‘remembered’ for nothing else when he finally leaves, he should be remembered for Every Legal question, from simple email advice to court proceedings costing us much more than they should have. AND for making everything he touches a ‘fight to the finish’ — where, when challenged, he almost invariably LOSES — and on more than one occasion has been reamed by the judge for his behavior and handling of a case!
—–
I would especially like to see the accounting of one of the cases he started for us when he was still with Miller Brown & Dannis in 2005; at almost the exact same time he was hired to come in as our first ever General Counsel,(Thanks to Pedersen’s in-house construction management oversight a lot of Measure C sh-tuff was hitting the legal fan!)

No doubt Rolen convinced that board he could not only save us money, but ‘win the cases’ if we hired him.

The Bottom Line for the “Heathorn v. MDUSD” case? Who Knows?

Although the 5yr ‘Heathorn’ court case was first filed in June 2005 AND was Lost, then went to Appeal, BUT was finally settled in Oct 2010, I do not believe the combined/full costs have ever been reported.

I’m confident making one guarantee, though.

With Rolen pulling in Peter Bonis to take over for him, when the going got rough, (and his personal kinky lifestyle was really getting in the way) — and then when he and Bonis lost ‘BIG’, another LA attorney, Brown & Bonesteel, was brought in to handle the Appeal.

My guarantee– His bungling of the Heathorn case alone ate up well more than three years worth of Rolen’s entire annual legal budgets!

Did measure C pay the ‘original’ construction debt?

I also want to know if ANY Bond measure account was charged for the “extra” $million-plus PENALTIES that we lost in the legal battle!!!!

Hints of legal bungling not enough?

Heathorn offered to settle for just what they were owed, plus attorney fees, just ONE year after the case began, which was FOUR years before Rolen/Bonis dragged it out to a jury and cost us more than DOUBLE what they offered to settle for!

The court Judge said (my emphasis): “…In making this award the Court is not unaware, in any manner, of the large economic effect that this penalty award will have upon the children attending the various schools of the Mt. Diablo District. From recent news accounts it appears that not only will class sizes be increased due to teacher layoffs but the entire high school athletics and other after-school programs may be at risk of being discontinued in whole or substantial part.
It should not go unnoticed that this penalty, which the Court has no option but to award, OCCURS ONLY BECAUSE OF THE INCOMPETENT AND ARROGANT MANNER IN WHICH THE SCHOOL BOARD AND ITS REPRESENTATIVES MANAGED THIS CONSTRUCTION PROJECT. In reality, the cost to the District of this mismanagement was considerably greater. This Court has been told by the district that it incurred a cost of some $800,000 to bring in temporary classrooms when the school was not completed prior to the school term.
The jury concluded, in what seems to be well supported by the evidence, that this delay was almost entirely attributable to the conduct of the District and its representatives~1.”

“~1. The delay in opening was found to be comprised of 137 days unrelated to weather, with 125 of them attributed to the District”
—–

Loved Wendy’s comment on Borenstein’s column: “March 10-16 is national Sunshine Week, which promotes government transparency. When it comes to ironic coincidences, the timing of the Board’s consideration of these matters is pretty tough to top.” It will be interesting to hear the interchange, if its broadcast, but not sure what will happen since its on for info only. Its also unbelieveable there are no emails about the subject — the district server should be searched for all emails — the laptops of current and former Board members should be searched. Rolen did admit he was in possession of memoranda to the Board but refused to produce it. He failed to specify the other records.

Rolen had a conflict of interest as an attorney responding to Borenstein’s PRA — he was covering up his own contract extension with the others. I suspect there are email between Rolen, Steven Lawrence and Gary Eberhart that are being covered up by Rolen’s response. Maybe even add Sherry Whitmarsh to that list.